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| The Emperor's Nightingale (1949) | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Oct 26 2007, 08:09 AM (331 Views) | |
| Laughing Gravy | Oct 26 2007, 08:09 AM Post #1 |
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![]() The Emperor's Nightingale (Cisaruv Slavík) Directed by Jiri Trnka and Milos Makovec Narrated by Boris Karloff Well, where did we dig THIS one up? Frankly, I'd never heard of it and was surprised when I saw a DVD in the $3.99 bin. Karloff's name was prominently splashed across the cover of GoodTimes' "Extreme Fairy Tales" collection, and if he's not worth a penny less than four bucks, I don't know who is. Rembrandt Films, as it turns out, was the brainchild of producer William Snyder, who penetrated the Iron Curtain in his search for family entertainment he could dub into English. Jiri Trnka was a master of stop-motion animation using colorful little puppets to tell stories. Cisaruv Slavik was based on the timeless fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen. Boris Karloff was... well, Boris Karloff. I thought I'd never heard of this film, let alone seen it, but a couple of minutes into it I realized that it was bringing back a LOT of memories. You see, back in the 1960s my brother and I could attend all the monster movies we wanted, so long as every once in a while we tossed in a "family-type" film so our parents didn't worry that we were going to grow up to be Leopold and Loeb. Plus, we had two kid sisters, and we had to drag them to the movies from time to time. I can't begin to list all the monster movies I saw in theatres, but I can pretty much recall all of the family fare, 'cause we only went when we had to: Disney's Sword in the Stone and a reissue of Bambi; an imported version of Rumpelstiltskin; Santa Claus Conquers the Martians; Island of the Blue Dolphins; and... well, apparently, THIS film. Go figure. In the live-action wraparound sequence, a sad, lonely little boy who seems to live alone in a big house receives a toy bird, and then he falls asleep and dreams of a young Chinese Emperor who receives and loses a pet nightingale. Like the young Emperor, in the end the boy discovers happiness lies in breaking rules and being unconventional, which no doubt gave rise to the hippie movement of the 1960s. In any case, it's an interesting moral in a Czech film. The film is visually interesting and the animation is cute; the problem is that Boris narrates EVERYTHING. I am pretty sure this film was aimed at three year olds; anyone older than that would understand why the Emperor, having lost his bird, is looking sadly at a picture of a bird in a book without Karloff having to say, "The Emperor, having lost his bird, looked sadly at a picture of a bird in a book" or whatever he says. But he narrates down to the slightest detail; I was shocked that they just didn't have him read the closing credits, too. In fact, I'm kind of surprised he's not standing behind me, reading aloud as I type. And he's saddled with trite lines like, "The doctor came with his grim black bag, filled with unpleasant-tasting medicine. But what did the old doctor know about curing a lonely boy?” And then there's... Million-dollar Narration: "To be an Emperor must be magnificent. But who wants to be magnificent before breakfast?" Who indeed. Apparently, the film was a success, though, because producer Snyder soon started making his own animated films, including those dreadful Popeye, Casper, and (weird but not bad) Krazy Kat TV cartoons of the 1960s. Edited by Laughing Gravy, Mar 3 2016, 05:38 AM.
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| "I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley | |
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| Laughing Gravy | Mar 3 2016, 05:39 AM Post #2 |
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This was rewatched as an adjunct to our vaunted Shock Theatre program 'cause-a the whole Karloff thing, so I updated my review so's ya think ya gots yer money's worth. Yer welcome. |
| "I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley | |
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11:11 AM Jul 11